Easthampton City Council to review $36.3 million proposed budget

EASTHAMPTON — A City Council subcommittee will start analyzing Mayor Michael A. Tautznik’s $36.3 million proposed budget May 8.

Tautznik presented councilors with three-ring binders containing his budget at their meeting Wednesday. They voted unanimously to refer it to the finance subcommittee.

At its next meeting May 8 at 6 p.m., the subcommittee will review three of the budget’s 12 sections: general government, employee benefits and debt and interest. Councilor and subcommittee member Daniel B. Rist said the group will set dates for discussions of the remaining sections at that meeting.

The City Council does not have the power to increase spending in the budget, but can reduce it.

In June the council will hold a public hearing on the budget and vote on it section by section, Rist said.

The budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 would be an increase of 3.2 percent, or $1,125,089 over the current year’s budget of $35,200,653. Tautznik said he was able to balance the budget without any of the city’s stabilization funds.

It is about $1.1 million less than the approximately $37.4 million in requests he received from city departments.

“There isn’t enough funding available to support everything in all the departments,” he said. “Departments have consolidated as much as they can and it’s come to the point where everything we fund is necessary.”